


Like the careful undressing of love

by lesbianquill



Category: Holby City
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Nude Beach, what a time to be alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 03:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianquill/pseuds/lesbianquill
Summary: From my tumblr prompts: A holiday brings unexpected surprises— Bernie and Serena find themselves on a nudist beach.





	Like the careful undressing of love

**Author's Note:**

> I've been taking prompts on my tumblr (@mxquill), and this has been my favourite so far, so it's only fair that I bring it here!
> 
> Anonymous asked: Bernie and Serena take a little holiday in the south of France and think they are going to a normal beach but wind up on a nudist beach!

Their little tour of France (Serena’s idea— she has spent enough time here, after all) feels almost too good to be true. They’re away from the rumour mill, from troublesome family members, from work— and Bernie gets to watch Serena relax, to shake off the weight that the hospital has left on her shoulders, to  _live._

They choose the beach straight off the map, a simple point and drive job (in which Bernie gets to bust out her stellar map skills), and pull up in the car ready to spend the day sunning themselves and taking a breather from all the tourism Serena has insisted they partake in. 

At first, they don’t notice anything out of the ordinary— are too busy looking at each other, the sea, the cloudless sky. They miss the very obvious (albeit, french) signs that serve as a warning to any unassuming beachgoers; Bernie is preoccupied with recounting Cam’s first time in the sea. Finds herself laughing at her own story, with Serena laughing along with her, before she almost chokes at the sight of the man that walks straight past them– stark naked. 

“Ding  _dong_ ,” Bernie murmurs, watching out the corner of her eye as Serena stifles a laugh. She clutches Bernie’s hand a little tighter. 

Then, to her surprise, Bernie is being dragged further up the naturist beach— that they’ve now come to realise— by her very determined, deadly serious girlfriend.

“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” Serena reasons as she stakes her claim on a less populated patch of sand, setting down her towel and her bag before she shrugs off her blouse. “We don’t  _have_  to strip off— actually, I think I’d be doing some of this lot a favour—”

“Come on Campbell,” Bernie grins, already tugging at the ties on her bikini, “Don’t tell me you never went skinny dipping with the rest of the St Winifred’s girls.”

“Oh, and you have?”

Bernie glances down at her with a twinkle in her eye. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She slips the bottoms down over her thighs and sinks down to her knees, making herself comfortable on the towel Serena has laid out for her. Bernie shuffles onto her front, arms folded under her head, and hums as the sun dances on her bare spine. “Of course, it was all fun and games until Joshua Carter from the year above stole my knickers, but it was quite good while it lasted.”

Actually, there’s something quite liberating about baring everything— scars and cellulite and all— aside from the sand that she’s going to be finding for days in places she’d rather not think about. The army never gave her much time to be self-conscious, not when she was sharing the most part of her life with a whole group of people. She’s seen it all. Prides herself on being unflappable, even. 

In fact, she’s a little surprised that Serena isn’t taking the same  _throw it to the wind_  approach— until about ten minutes in, when she hears a mutter of ' _bugger it’_ and cracks her eyes open to watch Serena pull down the straps of her swimming costume.

A fond smile pulls at Bernie’s lips. Serena is just as beautiful as the first time she saw her naked— nipples slightly pebbled from the sea breeze, the curve of her hip still bruised from a couple of nights before, the nest of curls between her thighs that Bernie has spent more time than she can count buried in. But here, it’s not sexual (despite the rousing memories that Serena’s body brings with it)— it’s just a body, like the countless others surrounding them. None of them get to take Serena home, though– they don’t get to undress her all over again, to taste the sea salt on her skin. No, that was Bernie’s privilege, and one that she’ll absolutely treasure later.

For now, Bernie just wants to see how long it takes to coax Serena into the water. A holiday well spent, she thinks. No— she  _knows—_ as she closes her eyes again and succumbs to the enveloping rays of the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> (Bonus points if you found the cheeky UNIT reference I threw in there!)


End file.
